An example or two from Leemans and Cory will supply sufficient information to enable the reader to understand something of the nature of Horapollo’s work, and of the actual Hieroglyphics from which that work has in great part been verified.
Leemans’ Horapollo, 1835.
The following is the 31st figure in the plates which Leemans gives; it is the pictorial representation to explain “What the Egyptians mean when they engrave or paint a star.”[[28]] “Would they signify the God who sets in order the world, or destiny, or the number five, they paint a star; God, indeed, because the providence of God, to which the motion of the stars and of all the world is subject, determines the victory; for it seems to them that, apart from God, nothing whatever could endure; and destiny they signify, since this also is regulated by stellar management,—and the number five, because out of the multitude which is in heaven, five only, by motion originating from themselves, make perfect the management of the world.”
Of the three figures which are delineated above, the one to the left hand symbolizes God, that in the middle destiny, and the third, the number 5, from five rays being used to indicate a star.
The same subjects are thus represented in Cory’s Horapollo.
Cory’s Horapollo, 1840.
Cory’s Horapollo, bk. i. c. 8, p. 15, also illustrates the question, “How do they indicate the soul?” by the accompanying symbols; of which I. represents the mummy and the departing soul, II. the hawk found sitting on the mummy, and III. the external mummy case. The answer to the question is:—